Why Do So Many Magazines Fail?

Failure in publishing is common. The most frequent mistakes new (and in some cases, experienced) publishers make is to make assumptions that just never turn into reality.

For example, you’re starting the best ever streetwear magazine known to mankind.

Let’s assume all of your streetwear loving friends will read, let’s assume WH Smiths will stock the title and let’s assume that Adidas, Nike and Reebok will be falling over themselves to advertise in your title.

You do your business plan, you research the market for streetwear and you list all of the potential advertisers who can help your early cash flow requirements.

You project conservatively, you believe, and you work out that whilst you might only make a small profit to begin with, in years two, three and four, the multiples on profits are amazing.

Here’s the reality.

When you pitch your new magazine, the big brands will ignore you.

They might be nice to you and tell you to keep them in the loop, but they won’t put money in.

Some of them, might – only might – let you put an advert in for FREE (yes, the big brands who fuel the advertising market don’t even say yes to free adverts every time) so your plan for putting a free advert in your magazine on behalf of Nike in an attempt to trigger a domino effect to encourage the smaller brands (or Nike’s competitors) will fall flat when Nike refuses to let you put their treasured brand in a publication they simply do not know.

Secondly, the medium sized advertisers will want to see a sample/dummy copy of your magazine. Obviously to produce this you will need to spend money.

Now you have a dilemma. How much time, money and effort are you going to put in to this dummy edition?

Have you hired a designer? Outsourced the job, perhaps? Paid for a small print run? Commissioned/written the editorial?

How much money are you going to invest in your dummy edition?

Try and do it on the cheap and you’ll put more advertisers off than you ever attract, go all in for a stunning sample, that’s money you’ve got to find and you still won’t the big brands because they are very shy when it comes to launch magazines from small/independent publishers.

As a magazine publisher, you hit a cash flow crisis before you’ve got your first issue out of the door.

What about if you’ve secured investment?

I speak from experience – I’ve launched several magazines – you will burn through cash in your early stages so fast, your life will become very, very stressful. It’s a lot like watching an egg timer, you fight desperately to reach profits before your cash runs out and even when you (finally) do hit your profit, you still have to fight hard to get parity with the money you already spent.

It’s incredibly easy to spend £250k before you produce your first issue making £10k in profit.

Launching a magazine is like launching a ship, once you set sail, you can’t stop, can’t turn round and are entirely reliant on sailing conditions being in your favour. Of course, if you happen to be a skilled captain behind the wheel of a super-tanker, life’s easier.

This is why it’s far easier to be given the wheel to your own super-tanker rather than trying to build your own from scratch. This is why it’s far easier to be behind the wheel when you have instant access to those experienced captains who can easily point you in the right direction the second you need it. This is why franchising a magazine is – in my view any way – 100,000 times more likely to reduce financial and personal stress in comparison to trying to get your own title off the ground.

1) You don’t need to hire an editor
2) You don’t need to manage a team of writers
3) You don’t need to hire a chief designer
4) You don’t need to manage the advertising design for your clients
5) You don’t need to worry about the opposition from potential advertisers as your magazine brand is established

There are LOTS more benefits.

Apply for our free franchise prospectus and we’ll outline the many advantages.

2010 limited availability promotion: Franchisees who sign up before March 2010 will pay 0% commission. Apply for your free franchise pack below.